Tony Jones speaks to Kevin Rudd

Transcript

TONY JONES: With interest rates and Iraq sitting together in the headlines, Labor's Kevin Rudd has a chance to take on the Prime Minister on his two dominant issues - national security and economic management. Mr Howard himself chose to revive the Iraq debate, but Kevin Rudd hasn't yet tested out any new ideas on economic management. Meanwhile, David Hicks, education and global warming and water management are among the key issues. To cover some of this ground we are joined by the Labor Leader.

Thanks for being here Kevin Rudd.

KEVIN RUDD, OPPOSITION LEADER: Thanks for having me on the program.

TONY JONES: How significantly does the Blair move alter the political debate about the issue here in Australia?

KEVIN RUDD: I think so, probably at the margins. I'm concerned about what the Australian Government does. I'm the alternative prime minister of the country. I've put out my policy there in clear-cut terms and it's to the point that we don't think that our combat forces should remain there indefinitely, we need to have them home. On top of that, there are other forms of security systems we can provide for the Iraqis.

What Mr Howard is trying to argue is that any removal of Australian forces equals victory to terrorists. Let’s put this into a bit of context - 520 combat forces, they come out under our plan, out of a total force within the region of some 1,400 Australians. Mr Blair is announcing, we understand, the withdrawal of some 2,000 to 3,000 British troops out of a total force of 7,000 British troops. So, my action, according to Mr Howard, is a victory to terrorists, but Mr Blair's action is somehow entirely consistent with Australian Government policy. I would be interested to understand Mr Howard's logic which defends that argument.

TONY JONES: So politically, you regard this as good news for you?

KEVIN RUDD: Look, I'm just concerned about my job here in Australia. I've said what is my exit strategy for Iraq. I've made it very plain. My challenge to Mr Howard is “What is yours for winning this war and what are your benchmarks for success in terms of getting out? “ We have a war which Mr Howard said was going to last for Australian troops a matter of months. That was four long years ago. Mr Howard is still no closer to giving us an exit strategy. That's why I said a couple of days ago that his policies increasingly represent for us, I think, a risk to Australia's national security - no exit strategy for our troops, a war which has increased rather than reduced the terrorist threat and made Australia a greater terrorist target than we would otherwise be and remarkably, where this whole debate on Iraq began most recently, his attack on the Democratic Party, on the United States, the alternative administration of the United States of America and the party which now controls the Congress. Mr Howard described them as the terrorist party of choice. That's why I've said most recently, Mr Howard, I think in his policies, is representing an increasingly long term risk to our enduring security interests.

TONY JONES: Just on the record, he never actually used that phrase “terrorist party of choice”. That’s your political spin on it.

KEVIN RUDD: He said Al Qaeda would be effectively dancing in the streets, words to that effect, should Senator Obama be elected or any other Democrat. His real problem was to so attack the party of Roosevelt, the party of Truman, the party of Kennedy, the party of Johnson and the party which may well be in the White House at the end of next year. Imagine Tony, what Mr Howard would say if I went on an interview with you and said, “Well the Republicans, if they were returned to the White House at the end of next year, that would be a victory for Al Qaeda's party of choice?” Can you imagine the hullabaloo?

TONY JONES: Well the other party, the party that is in government in the White House at least, is sending the Vice-President here, Dick Cheney, who will be here in a day's time. When will you see him?

KEVIN RUDD: On Friday. I look forward to the meeting very much. The US Ambassador, Ambassador McCallum, indicated to me some time ago - in fact I think we were at the tennis together at the time - that the Vice-President would be visiting and would I like his assistance in organising a meeting and I said, “Of course”. The Vice-President of the United States is always a welcome visitor to this country because we support the alliance with America.

TONY JONES: You'll be outlining to him Labor’s plan to withdraw troops?

KEVIN RUDD: I imagine that the Vice-President has been well versed on Labor’s policy to bring troops home, as I imagine the Vice-President is well-briefed on our policy for the continued support of the military action in Afghanistan and our support for US policies in east Asia, which have most recently yielded good fruits in terms of negotiations with North Korea.

TONY JONES: So you think you can have a sort of trade-off with the White House on this issue, do you, because John Howard is saying that his government won't rat on the ally? He said, “You either rat on the ally or stay with the ally. It is as simple as that.” The implication of the Prime Minister's comment is that Labor plans to rat on the ally by withdrawing troops from Iraq before the Americans do.

KEVIN RUDD: What I would say to Mr Howard is it is really time to stop playing domestic politic with key questions of national security. What's this alliance with the United States? Who formed it? We did, under Curtin in '41. The Liberals consummated it in ANZUS in '51. We've been proud defenders of this thing for 65 years. Why? It's in Australia's national security interests - always have been and always will be. The reasons for that are clear: It's in our interests for the US to continue to play a strategic stabilising role in east Asia, and we benefit enormously from US intelligence assets around the world, particularly in this age of terrorism. For those and other reasons, I've always said that America is an overwhelming force for good in the world. But Mr Howard says this: if you're an ally of the United States, it is tick the box foreign policy, you agree with everything America does.

My approach is this: an alliance with the United States does not mandate automatic compliance with every element of US foreign policy. That's the difference.

TONY JONES: What if the Vice-President, who is a very big supporter of the war in Iraq - what if says to you you're ratting on the ally behind closed doors, or the basement, or wherever you meet him?

KEVIN RUDD: I would say, “Mr Vice President, respectfully, I disagree.” Just as we have been loyal to this alliance, despite our disagreement with earlier Democratic Party and Republican administration of the United States over Vietnam, and remember, Mr Howard is on the record as saying - not only has he learnt nothing from Iraq, he still defends Vietnam as a model of US strategic policy wisdom. I think that is wrong.

TONY JONES: Is this the message for the Americans that they've made a mistake in Iraq as significant as the mistake they made in Vietnam?

KEVIN RUDD: I've said on a number of occasions and I believe it to be true, absolutely true, that this war in Iraq represents the single greatest failure of Australian national security policy since Vietnam. What are the benchmarks for this war? To eliminate weapons of mass destruction, which we subsequently discovered did not exist. Secondly, Mr Howard said it was necessary to reduce the overall threat of terrorism. It's had the reverse effect and made Australia a greater terrorist target on the way through. Thirdly, he said it was designed to liberate and oppress people. 61,000 Iraqi civilians, at a minimum, depending on who you believe in the count, now lie dead in the four years since the invasion occurred and Mr Howard says that somehow he has the credibility to provide anybody with a strategic lecture.

Mr Howard's national security credentials are being shredded bit by bit by this Iraq folly and he should be held accountable for it.

TONY JONES: Let me go back to the situation with the British. It is four months since the British Army Commander General Sir Richard Dannatt claimed that the continuing presence of British troops exacerbates security problems in Iraq. Do you agree with him?

KEVIN RUDD: I have maintained, long and consistently, that what we have had since the invasion of Iraq is the foreign occupation force acting as a magnate for Jihadists from right around the world, across the border from Iran, across the border from Saudi, both from Syria and also from Jordan, but what is extraordinary is that it's not just General Dannatt who has said that. Mr Howard, if he was honest about this, would have told the Australian people just prior to the Iraq war that he was in possession of intelligence material from the joint intelligence committee which said, "You go ahead and invade Iraq, guess what? You will actually increase the overall terrorist threat, like bees to the honey pot". That's what has happened.

So, instead of concluding the war in Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden, five years later it seems, remains alive and well, with Al Qaeda on the remake and the Taliban resurgent, instead of attending to that, Mr Howard cut and run from Afghanistan, deployed his military assets from Australia to Iraq, despite having advice saying this would actually create a new centre of terrorism.

TONY JONES: Is there any evidence that Australian troops in Iraq exacerbate security problems?

KEVIN RUDD: Look, as far as the Australian contribution is concerned, I have no such reports. All I would say is that the advice that Mr Howard received in terms of the overall military invasion, which is led, remember, by 140,000 American troops, in contrast to the 520 Australian combat forces we are talking about and the 7,000 British we are talking about today, that overwhelming coalition force led by the Americans would have the effect of drawing Jihadists allied to al-Qaeda's global terrorist network into the country. Guess what? That's what has happened.

TONY JONES: One quick final question on this. Mr Downer's argument is that he will only withdraw troops, Australia would only withdraw troops, on the basis that it's agreed that the situation is now ready for that, not on a time-based situation, which he says is extremely dangerous and could exacerbate problems in Iraq. You are talking about a time-based withdrawal and he is talking about a withdrawal based on conditions.

KEVIN RUDD: Well our policy is clear cut. We are talking about a negotiated staged withdrawal from Iraq of our combat force, should I be elected as Prime Minister later this year. We will do so in close consultation with our American ally and of course with the Iraqi Government. I notice what the Deputy Foreign Minister of Iraq said on your program the other night, that if it was done in a negotiated, staged way the Iraqis themselves could look after this. I listened carefully to Mr Howard's defence this evening for why the British had withdrawn. He said because their part of Iraq had been stabilised around Basra, were his words.

One of the reports that I have seen, and I would like Mr Howard's confirmation as to whether it is accurate or not, is that al Matana province, where the Australians are, and Dekar province, where the Australians are, together with the province of Najaf, three of the 18 Iraqi provinces, only those three where in fact the provisional Iraqi authority has taken control of that province in terms of effective local control of its arrangements - that's three of the 18, outside of the Kurdish part of the country. If that is the case and the Iraqis, according to those reports, are effectively back in control of the province, perhaps Mr Howard could explain the difference between those arrangements and those which now pertain in Basra, which have justified in his book, the British to come out. Maybe I'm missing something on that. I stand to be corrected but I would like the clarification.

TONY JONES: We might get an answer on this tomorrow if the Prime Minister or the Foreign Minister clarify that.

Let’s move on. David Hicks - when you are speaking to the Vice-President of the United States, will you tell him that David Hicks cannot get a fair trial under a military commission?

KEVIN RUDD: Yes, and in unequivocal terms. I've said that on many occasions to the United States Embassy in Canberra.

TONY JONES: You will say that directly to the Vice-President?

KEVIN RUDD: Absolutely. There is no secret on our position.

TONY JONES: Will you be urging them to abandon that and send him home?

KEVIN RUDD: I will be saying what I've said publicly. What I will be saying privately in any communications with the United States administration - I'm not going to canvass in advance anything which will become part of a confidential conversation, but I will just say this: when it comes to a US military commission, it simply doesn't pass the basic tests of justice. There is no presumption of innocence. On top of that, you have of course, the composition of the military commission itself and the normal laws of evidence which apply. Mr Hicks - and I am no defender of him in terms of what he's done, or alleged to have done, but I'm a defender consistently of his human rights and legal rights. He should be made available to face prosecution either in a US civilian court or an Australian court.

TONY JONES: Which can't be done, because you can't try him retrospectively. So, if Hicks were tried and convicted in a military commission in the United States and then sent back to Australia, which is a possibility, would you as Labor Prime Minister, if you became Prime Minister, pardon him and set him free?

KEVIN RUDD: We would take advice from the relevant legal authorities within Australia as to what to do under those circumstances. But you are setting up a range of hypotheses.

TONY JONES: It's not a hypothesis to Hicks and his family. If he ends up back here in jail, having been tried in a commission which you say is unjust, would you give a commitment to set him free?

KEVIN RUDD: You raise a valid question. We would take advice from the Attorney-General’s Department as to an appropriate course of action. That would be the responsible thing to do.

TONY JONES: Are you contemplating that?

KEVIN RUDD: If that scenario unfolded as you described, that (a) he is convicted and (b) returned to Australia to serve a custodial sentence, it is a bit hard to find out from the varying pronouncements of Mr Ruddock, Mr Downer and Mr Howard as to what actually will happen on that score, then the responsible course of action for me would be to take advice from the Attorney-General's Department. That is the proper thing to do and that is precisely how I would act.

TONY JONES: All politicians take the Newspoll very seriously as we know. The latest analysis shows that Labor is leading the government now on many issues. You are still behind but you are making up ground own economic management and national security. You've had nearly two weeks dominated by national security. When are you going to shift your campaign for the hearts and minds of Australian voters back to economic management?

KEVIN RUDD: In late January. That's when we shifted it, because in late January and early February I launched three documents. I entitled them the Education Revolution. What I was seeking deliberately to do was to shine a light on the core with hole in this Government's entire economic strategy, which is what? We've had this resources boom now roll on for some years and what it has done in effect is mask the fact that during that period of time productivity growth in the Australian economy has been falling, so much so that we've had in fact a virtual halving in productivity growth and against the external measure against the US economy, falling quite rapidly. Secondly, what we know is that over that period of time this Government's actual investment in education, particularly higher education, but not just there, has also been poor, pathetic and in some cases collapsing - the only country in the OECD to see something like a 7 per cent real decline in national government investment and higher education, when the rest of the OECD across that near decade length of time was going ahead by 50 per cent.

The two stories are linked Tony, declining productivity investment, declining real effort education. I say the response to building long term prosperity is to bring about in this country an education revolution. It is a gaping hole in this Government's entire economic arsenal and today’s warnings again about inflation are about skills shortages as well. It is linked to that.

TONY JONES: One of the problems in Federal Government dealing with education is that so much of it is in the hands of the states. You've got Labor Governments all over the place. What would you propose to do about secondary education?

KEVIN RUDD: Well when it comes to secondary education, one of the immediate problems we have seen is this huge deficit in maths and science. There was a recent analysis by the world economic forum which ranked us 29th in the world. This is appalling. One of the reasons that's the case is we don't have enough trained maths and science teachers teaching in our schools. Some 25 per cent of them don't have relevant higher education degrees in maths or science, despite the fact they are teaching that within our secondary school system. We've put forward a positive policy.

How do you get your brightest and best into maths and science? We say we will half their HECS. How do you further encourage them, once they’ve graduated in maths and science, to continue in that career, either by teaching or remaining within the related disciplines and professions? We say we will half your HECS again if you stay for a subsequent five years. That's practical commonsense stuff, and Mr Howard's Education Minister said it simply won't work, despite the fact that the Government currently does that with nursing.

TONY JONES: Have you considered a national curriculum?

KEVIN RUDD: Yes we have and in broad terms, we support the development of one over time. What's the reason for that? Right now across Australia you have tens of thousands of families moving from state to state during the course of each year, kids being dislocated between one school and the other. This is not easy to do and it is much more complex than Mr Howard's Education Minister providing a bit of a morality play about Chairman Mao being taught in schools, which is what she was been on about last year. It is hard stuff. What I would like to move towards is how do we get to, on a collaborative basis, a national curriculum in core subjects like maths, like science, like English, like foreign languages, maybe even history.

TONY JONES: Have you been talking to the states about this because they have their own curriculums?

KEVIN RUDD: They do. The curriculum quality across the states, in my judgment, varies. But I think the states in their heart of hearts recognise that the nation is a national economy with an increasingly national mobile workforce and therefore if collaboratively rather than coercively, we worked with the states across a fixed timeline to bring about national curriculum, what I would describe as these core subjects there, would be a great cheer from every parent in the country, particularly one that has had to pull kids out of grade 3 in Queensland and put them in Grade 4 in New South Wales, or Grade 2 in Victoria, or whatever it happens to be, and the kids' education gets disrupted.

TONY JONES: We've got no time to talk about water, we’ve got no time to talk about carbon emissions and global warming. We will do that another time, if we can.

Finally, though, I want to get a picture of the strategy, the election strategy that you are building here. It appears a picture is emerging, that it's the man of the future, Kevin Rudd, versus the man of the past, John Howard. Is that the sort of theme that you are trying to develop here?

KEVIN RUDD: What we are going to be doing is explaining to the Australian people what the next 10 years looks like for Australia and, when it comes to the real long-term challenges which we face, which is how do you build long-term prosperity -

TONY JONES: No, no. What about -

KEVIN RUDD: No, no, no.

TONY JONES: You’re being a bit shy here, aren't you? There is an underlying message about two people and that's the question I asked.

KEVIN RUDD: No, there’s an underlying message about two sets of values. What we stand for is this: how do you build long term prosperity in this country by investing in the future without throwing the fair go out the back door? Mr Howard says, “It’s okay, we’re going to ride on the back of the resources boom, Bob’s your uncle, everyone is happy and forget about the fair go, because we’re going to Americanise every workplace in the country.” That's what is on offer here, our vision for the future which is about investing in the future. Mr Howard's somewhat complacent approach is to rest on his laurels, ride on the resources boom back and hope that it is all okay in the morning. I don't think that the Australian people will buy that.

TONY JONES: Kevin Rudd, sounds like your speech writers have come from The West Wing, if you've been watching that.

KEVIN RUDD: I haven't had time to watch telly for a long time.

TONY JONES: Of course not.

KEVIN RUDD: Apart from Lateline, apart from Lateline.

TONY JONES: We thank you very much for coming and joining us on Lateline. We’ll see you again, hopefully.